It’s been over a year now since I started writing this blog. In some ways, it feels like a silly thing to do, spending a couple hours a week working on something that just seems to dissolve into the blogosphere – time I spend beating my brains and the keyboard into submission when I could be reading or Netflix-ing or even doing something virtuous, like cleaning the bathroom.

Although I started out with two posts a week, I have fallen into a much more comfortable once-weekly posting schedule – not onerous and yet, strict enough. I hesitate to break this chain, even if it means resorting to filling up this space with old material that I still find amusing, in spite of the fact that I wrote it myself, some of it nearly twenty years ago.

And so, in honor of the ninth month on the calendar, my favorite, here are nine musings on why I blog:

1. As I have already alluded to, chains are hard to break. While sometimes quitting something can be seen as necessary to further other goals, blogging is still working for me. It keeps me writing a minimal amount, even if that is only editing and formatting.
2. I like being a blogger. It gives credence to the idea that I want to be called a writer. I write, therefore I Am A Writer.
3. If I didn’t blog/write, then memories and thoughts would slide into oblivion. Case in point, when I re-read old columns I used to submit to the Vermilion Standard, that I now re-publish here sometimes, I am surprised by what I forgot – things that I don’t want to forget. Like funny things my kids said or I how I felt when the Twin Towers went down.
4. I believe in the power of individual memory. While one person’s diary can primarily reflect a single experience, it can also shed light on the experience of the collective. Anne Frank, while writing from a teenager’s perspective, memorialized the experience of many more than just herself and her family hiding from the Nazis in World War II Germany.
5. I haven’t really publicized my blog enough (#goals) on Instagram or Facebook (even though I have intended to since I began this blog), so I have a very tiny subscriber following. However, the occasional comment I receive or the in-person discussions about my latest post with a reader keeps me in touch with people that I talk to often or rarely. And human contact, especially for introverted writers, is GOOD. I like the conversation.
6. I find that writing on a computer is different from writing by hand in my journal. I am able to capture ideas faster. Sometimes the tactile-ness of the keys seems to move me forward, keeps me going. Sure I could write on my computer other than the blog but the blog keeps me minimally accountable, keeps me coming back to the keyboard.
7. I write to find out what I think. It never fails to surprise me that what I start out with is almost never what I end up with. It’s become fun to see what happens when I follow the bread crumbs I leave scribbled on the blank index cards I’ve learned to keep nearby: Mr. Dressup, Ukrainian weddings, the worst jobs I’ve had and what I learned, Winnie-the-Pooh and why I love children’s literature so much. (All possible forth-coming posts.)
8. Blogging is a great challenge. I’ve learned (and continue to learn) a lot about blogging and setting up a website. Learning new stuff is SO GOOD for the brain, both old ones and new ones. And things that I said I would never be interested in (like promoting myself on social media) now don’t seem so heinous. It’s just part of the job.
9. I want to leave something behind. This may be the most important. In many ways, this blog is part of my ongoing quest to leave behind a personal and family history. And reading about keeping personal memoirs, I have learned it all counts: the marginalia written in favorite books, handwritten recipes with annotations, the indecipherable script on the backs of old photos. And of course, personal diaries, journals and blogs.

I think I will keep going.